San Diego Mayor Bob Filner prevailed in court Friday in his legal battle with San Diego hoteliers over frozen tourism marketing funds, setting the stage for a showdown next week when the City Council will be asked to intervene.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor upheld his Thursday tentative ruling in which he concluded that Filner was within his legal right to not sign an agreement governing operation of the city’s Tourism Marketing District.

At stake is an estimated $30 million a year in revenue used to not only promote the city as a tourist and meetings destination, but also staff the San Diego Tourism Authority, formerly known as the Convention and Visitors Bureau. The money is generated via a 2 percent surcharge on hotel room bills and has been collected by the city since Jan. 1.

Because the funds have been frozen, a planned $5 million advertising campaign for the summer season has been canceled, and 85 staff members have been issued layoff notices.

Following the court hearing, Filner said it is the hotel owners, not him, who have stalled the marketing efforts because of what he says is their refusal to negotiate with him.

“They were just so arrogant and so used to getting their own way,” Filner told reporters following the hearing. “... This is a new day, a new mayor. They can’t count on the fact there will be a compliant mayor to their behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing they have done for decades.”

Filner, who has presented the hoteliers with a counter-proposal, urged them to negotiate with him in hopes of ending the impasse and resuming marketing of the city. He’s proposed a salary cap of $160,000 for employees of the Tourism Authority and those organizations funded by the marketing district and wants $6 million set aside for the 2015 centennial celebration of Balboa Park’s Panama-California Exposition of 1915. He’s also proposed language encouraging hotel owners to provide their workers with higher pay.

While board members of the Tourism Marketing Corp. are not currently in negotiations with Filner, hoteliers are talking to individual council members about the possibility of working out a resolution that would satisfy at least some of Filner’s demands while meeting the needs of the tourism industry, said Mike McDowell, who heads the San Diego Lodging Industry Association.

“We’re talking to the council and trying to understand how, within the context of the agreement, we can accommodate the mayor’s request and which things are on the table and which are off the table, and we hope to communicate that to his team before the weekend is out,” McDowell said.

Recognizing they could be facing a protracted legal battle, tourism leaders are turning their attention to Tuesday, when they hope council members will approve a measure compelling Filner to sign the agreement that has been holding up the release of marketing dollars.

Although the council last November, on a 6-1 vote,approved the renewal of the marketing district for nearly 40 more years, the makeup of the council has changed since then, there is a new mayor, and an alternative proposal on the table from Filner.

A spokeswoman for Council President Todd Gloria said Friday that he is unlikely to comment on the matter before Tuesday.

Taylor, in his ruling, pointed out that a council-approved resolution last November had not been written in a way that specifically directed the mayor to sign the five-year operating agreement. Had the legislation been drafted so that it explicitly mandated the mayor to sign the pact, “we wouldn’t be sitting here,” Taylor said Friday.

Appointed to the San Diego Superior Court by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in January 2005, Taylor was elected to six-year terms in 2006 and 2012. Formerly in private practice specializing in civil litigation, Taylor last month effectively killed the plan put forth by Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs to clear cars from the center of Balboa Park when he ruled it was illegal.

Aware that the council will be considering a resolution next week to resolve the matter of the unsigned contract, Taylor said Filner knows he would be required to sign the agreement if the council were to approve the measure and successfully override a mayoral veto.

Attorney Michael Colantuono, representing the Tourism Marketing District, said he wasn’t so sure Filner would comply. He had urged Taylor to continue the hearing until after the council vote.

“I’m asking you to prepare for the possibility that the City Council and the mayor seem to have from the outside what looks like a bad marriage,” said Colantuono, expressing concern that a delay of six weeks or more could mean dozens of people will be out of work.

Responded Taylor, “I can’t control the fact that it may take a few weeks for this to play itself out, and I’m sorry for those people, but this was brought to me when it was brought to me, and here we are. I’ll move as fast as I need to move, but I can’t control the City Council’s process.”